


hangéd with gold so red

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2015: Siblings, Husbands, Lovely Ladies, and Other Miscreants [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5409629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky comes home from work on Christmas Eve to comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hangéd with gold so red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Exaggerated_Specificity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exaggerated_Specificity/gifts).



> day twelve | prompt: angel

Bucky leaves work a broken man.

There is no humanity to be found on Christmas Eve, and the truth of it is only underlined further when you work retail.

Bucky reaches up to touch his bottom lip, feeling the tender, broken skin that had only stopped bleeding just before he left work. He’d spent an evening of ringing up rushed, frazzled mothers and asshole guys at Target, toy after toy, gift card after gift card. He’d been mocked, sneered at, condescended to, yelled at, screamed at, and threatened for over twelve hours during his double shift. 

The day started with him having to call security to remove a man who lost his patience behind a woman with four children surrounding her who had her card declined. The woman had been in tears, her hands shaking as she dug through her purse for cash she and Bucky both knew wasn’t there. The man had started yelling, and Bucky was too afraid to try and take him on himself. Over a decade with a short-tempered, cruel stepfather ensured that.

The police were called. It was well before noon.

The next time the cops showed up, it’s because Bucky was at the end of his rope and physically got between two women who were fighting over some kind of jacket that was apparently the last. He’d gotten punched in the mouth, had his hair pulled, and ended up with an elbow to the eye.

Target was visited by the cops for the second time on Christmas Eve just before close.

The jacket didn’t survive.

Bucky hates Christmas. He hates Christianity and the hypocrisy of its devotees, he hates commercialism and capitalism and greed, and he hates that Stevie is home alone on Christmas Eve.

It’s nearly midnight by the time he drags himself up the rickety iron staircase to their apartment, and he’s too tired to care about the relieved tears burning at the back of his eyes.

He smells cinnamon the second he opens the door, before he even steps inside.

There’s a bright, cheerful little tree in the corner near the space heater, all lit up with twinkling lights and ornaments from Steve’s childhood and an angel at the top that Bucky used to have on his own tree, back when he was little, when his dad was alive and he didn’t live in fear.

Steve appears from the kitchen wearing a red-and-white striped apron that makes him look like a thick, dreamy candy cane, and he’s carrying a massive dish out and setting it on their little table. He turns and sees Bucky for the first time, his blue eyes brightening, a grin flashing across his face before he sees the state Bucky is in.

“Ohmygod,” he breathes, rushing over and cupping Bucky’s cheeks more carefully than a man of his size should be capable of. Bucky relaxes in his gentle grip, letting his eyes fall closed as he sighs.

“I’m okay--” he starts.

“What _happened_?” Steve turns Bucky’s head this way and that, surveying the damage, his hands tightening a little on Bucky’s cheeks. Bucky opens his eyes and sees the fury there, the rage that anyone dared to touch his boyfriend. And Bucky knows he shouldn’t love it, he knows, but he can’t help but sink down into that protective love, into the safety of Steve.

“A red suede jacket. It was like the fuckin’ Judgment of Solomon.” He rolls his eyes and tries to shake his head but Steve’s hands are holding him still. “I tried to interfere, and I got myself punched.”

“Did you talk to the police? What did they say?” Steve looks around the apartment before his eyes light on his cell phone. His jaw is clenched, his pretty eyes narrowed. 

“It’s fine, Stevie. It’s over now. I’ve had ice on it, and Nat gave me a painkiller from when she fell off her skateboard this summer. I’m just…” He sighs again and reaches out for Steve then, seeking out his warmth. “I’m just so glad to be home.”

Steve pulls him in close, wrapping his strong arms around Bucky and tucking his face into the long, dirty strands of Bucky’s hair. Bucky can feel his kisses there, can hear him breathing, can barely move in Steve’s embrace. It’s heaven.

“Never want to let you go. It’s ridiculous. I just want to be with you everywhere. Just in case…” Steve’s arms tighten and Bucky actually lets out a sound, a euphoric, quiet grunt. Steve’s holding him so tight he can’t breathe.

“Did you cook for us?” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s chest, his nose burrowed into the hollow of his throat. He melts under Steve’s hands that trail up and down his back, that cup the nape of his neck like he needs to be cradled, like he’s precious.

“Yeah,” Steve sighs, loosening his grip to turn them both to look at the kitchen table. “Made pot roast and potatoes and onions--”

“My _favorite_ ,” Bucky moans, reaching down for Steve’s hand and pulling him toward the table.

“And I made broccoli casserole like your ma used to make, but I burned it. Mrs. Henderson across the way needed help getting her groceries up the stairs, and I ended up helpin’ her peel apples and I kinda forgot about the casserole.” Steve has the grace to look sheepish.

Bucky grins up at his boyfriend, shaking his head in nothing but adoration.

“You’re too nice,” he tells him. He sits down at his spot and looks up to watch Steve walk around the table and sit across from him.

“Well, she _did_ give us an apple pie for my trouble, so there’s that. Eat up, Buck. There’s carrots and green beans with ham like your ma made, and some biscuits. I hope you’re hungry.”

Bucky loads his plate with food, not being shy about taking generous helpings of everything. He’s not afraid of eating in front of people too much anymore, and especially not in front of Steve. They’ve been working on it together, slowly removing Alexander’s presence from Bucky’s mind and replacing him with new memories, new habits, new mantras. 

They clear the table together and load up the dishwasher before Bucky hops in the shower, washing the scum of retail off his skin and rubbing some Neosporin on the cut on his lip. His long hair is dripping water on his hoodie as he shuffles back into the living room where Steve is loading up the DVD player and pointing over to the couch where he’s dragged out their fuzziest blankets and softest pillows.

“Get comfortable, doll,” Steve tells him, taking a step back from the TV and grabbing the remote to push play. “Let me rub your shoulders.”

Bucky obeys because he’s a good little boy when he wants to be, and he burrows down in the blankets after tugging his hood up over his head, feeling warm and snug and satisfied after he finally gets settled.

“Here ya go,” Steve says from above him. Bucky looks up from under his hood and sees Steve standing there with a plate of warm apple ice and sweet vanilla ice cream, his face nothing but softness as their eyes meet.

“You’re too good to me,” Bucky informs him, taking the plate and lifting his face to accept the slow, savoring kiss that Steve licks into his mouth.

“Just wanted to be our first real Christmas together to be special,” Steve whispers against his lips, and the emotion it pulls out of both of them is so strong it borders on painful. Bucky closes his eyes as Steve presses their foreheads together, their noses nestled, breath rushing hot across both their faces.

“Get under these blankets with me, Stevie.” He firms up his lips into another series of tiny kisses, leaving the last one on Steve’s chin as he stands up. Bucky scooches forward and lets Steve slip in behind him on the couch, and he whimpers when he feels Steve’s big hands light on his sore shoulders.

He clutches the plate in his hands, his jaw tense as he forces himself to hold in the tears that want so badly to escape. He watches the opening credits roll on the TV while Steve works the knots out of his shoulders, turning him to liquid. Bucky gives a sudden burst of laughter, his eyebrows so high they’re hidden under the hood when he tries to turn and look at his boyfriend.

“ _Jingle All the Way_?” he asks, deadpan. “Really?”

“It’s a holiday classic!” Steve defends with a grin, running a hand up to Bucky’s neck after he tugs his hood down, coaxing him to turn around so he can rub it. “Arnold Schwarzenegger is underrated as an actor, if you ask me.”

“Oh, Stevie. What did they do to you while I was gone?” He means it to be funny, and the smile on his face proves it, but the reminder of their separation settles in around both of them.

It’s their first Christmas together as adults and the first as a couple. Their families had been best friends, all of them inseparable, something that allowed Steve and Bucky to grow up practically holding hands, closer than twins, more frantically codependent than either of their mothers knew what to do with. 

Neither of their families ever had much money, and when Bucky’s dad was killed in an accident on his way home late one night when Bucky was eleven, the Barnes family were nearly destitute.

Alexander Pierce had come along like a white knight, had swooped in and gathered the Barnes from Brooklyn and moved them to DC, ripping Bucky away from Steve so suddenly that it left them both torn and bleeding for years.

Bucky Barnes became Bucky Pierce, and he was folded up into the theater of cruelty his stepfather trapped his family in, lost to Steve for good.

Bucky had broken away, had taken off one night when the family were on a trip together to Manhattan where Alexander had business. He’d hopped on the train and headed straight to Brooklyn, had knocked on every door in their old building, looking for Steve.

Sarah Rogers had never forgotten Bucky, had never stopped worrying about him. She’d called Steve and he’d rushed right over, only a few blocks away, and their reunion was one for songs.

It had taken nearly 12 years, but the Barnes family finally broke free of Alexander Pierce. And of course it was the Rogers who helped.

“Come back,” Steve breathes warm against the back of his neck. Bucky takes a deep breath, his lashes fluttering as he’s drawn back into the present, out of the darkness. “Come back to me.”

“I’m here,” he manages, his voice soft, worn around the edges and cracking. He closes his eyes when Steve kisses from the top of his spine all the way up to his nape, his damp hair held aside in Steve’s gentle fingers. 

“Where are you?” Steve’s arms wrap around him and hug him back, hug him close. Bucky sinks into him, burrowed in warmth and blankets and Steve, and he cannot recall any brutality, any violence from those lost years without him. Not here.

“I’m home,” Bucky replies, one hand still holding his apple pie while the other one rests on Steve’s clasped above his navel. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. Serene. “I’m in our home, with you. And it’s our first Christmas.”

“Our first Christmas,” Steve echoes, his nose tucking into Bucky’s hair, his smile pressed sweet and secret to the first notch of Bucky’s spine. “And how long will we be together?”

“Always,” Bucky breathes, his chin trembling, his face tight with the need to cry, desperate for the relief of it.

“Always.” It comes out like a vow from Steve, from this miracle of a man who is as steady as the earth itself, who provided the foundation Bucky could lean on so he could heal, so he could be okay again, so he could have this, with Steve, just like they both always knew, like everybody always knew.

_Steve and Bucky_ are three words that mean forever.


End file.
